This document summarizes a workshop on content strategy given by James Callan. The workshop introduced content strategy and discussed key concepts like the content inventory and audit. It was explained that content strategy involves evaluating existing content, designing new content, and executing an ongoing content plan. Various tools for content strategy were also outlined, including message architecture, editorial style guides, templates, and editorial calendars. The workshop emphasized that content strategy is a long-term process focused on creating and maintaining useful, usable content over time.
10. “Like a gentleman in a finely crafted suit
who wants to burp you the alphabet,
even if your website looks nice, no one
will stick around to hear what
you have to say if you don’t
craft something compelling.”
Jason Santa Maria
@jasonsantamaria
http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/the-elements-
of-content-strategy/
11. Let’s go poke around on a real site that I know we’re all
interested in, or at least we all have been.
24. “In the web industry, anything that conveys meaningful
information to humans is called ‘content.’”
Erin Kissane
@kissane
The Elements of Content Strategy
25. “Content is anything an organization
or individual creates and shares
to tell their story.”
Ann Handley
@marketingprofs
26. illustrations images
tweets
help articles navigation
words
photos
audio
slideshows
interface copy
podcasts Facebook posts
blog posts infographics comments
cartoons video
white papers error messages
31. “Content strategy for the web is about bringing
editorial skill and methods into website planning. In
order to create good content, you need a plan for
how you’re going to get it and keep it coming.”
Elizabeth McGuane
@emcguane
http://mappedblog.com/2010/10/04/fear-loathing-
and-content-strategy/
32. “Content strategy is to copywriting
as information architecture is to design.”
Rachel Lovinger
@rlovinger
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/content-strategy-the
33. “Content is story.
Content strategy is storytelling.”
Prateek Sarkar
Director, Creative Services
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
34. Where do content strategists come from?
From “Apes of Wrath,” a Warner Bros. short.
35. Content strategy is a big playground.
People join in from different perspectives,
and tend to specialize.
45. “Content strategy helps organizations use content
to achieve their business goals.”
Melissa Rach
@melissarach
46. “(God help a business if UX isn’t one of
their business goals, but helping the user
isn’t an inherent part of content strategy).”
Melissa Rach
@melissarach
50. “Everything you write should be crafted
with the intention of selling, educating, or
increasing customer loyalty.”
51. “Important content like FAQs, Docs, Press Releases,
Welcome messages, etc. sometimes fall into some
other bucket of ‘Content That Does No Marketing™.’
Bullshit. It’s all marketing when you’re doing it right.”
Des Traynor
COO, Intercom
@destraynor
59. Content strategy is closely allied
with user experience.
It’s closely allied with marketing.
60. Content strategy has tentacles in:
Data modeling.
Product design.
Change management.
Social media.
Editorial.
Taxonomy.
Information architecture.
And other stuff.
62. Front-end content strategy
What your audience sees and
experiences. It includes:
• User experience content strategy
• Marketing and editorial content strategy
63. Back-end content strategy
This is how to make the content work
well. It includes:
• "Intelligent" content
• Content governance and operations
73. “Good content” is in the eye of the
beholder. Ultimately, your users decide.
74. What are your goals?
What is your content supposed
to achieve for you?
75. “There’s really only one central principle of good
content: it should be appropriate for your
business, for your users, and for its context.
Appropriate in its method of delivery, in its style
and structure, and above all in its substance.”
Erin Kissane
@kissane
The Elements of Content Strategy
76. Good content is:
• Appropriate
• Useful
• User-centered
• Clear
• Consistent
• Concise
• Supported
Erin Kissane again. Seriously, read her book.
77. How do you know
if your content is good?
Inventory and audit.
85. Things often tracked in a content inventory:
• Page ID/number
• URL
• Page Title
• Parent
• Page Description
• Components
• SEO Information (metadata, keywords)
• Who inside the organization owns that content.
89. You can tailor an audit to evaluate all kinds of qualities.
Is content on brand?
Is it accessible?
Do people understand it?
Is it meeting customer needs?
Is it in a usable format?
(There are many possible measures.)
109. And a big one, especially in discovery:
WHY?
Why do we need a blog?
Why do we need a Twitter feed?
Why aren’t we using a CMS?
Etc.
110. Once you’re done evaluating, it’s time
to design.
Some tools you might use to do so:
111. Message Architecture
What are your key messages?
How are you delivering them?
Does your audience believe you?
112. Your message architecture is
independent of form.
It’s not a tagline, or a mission
statement, or a video.
It’s communication goals.
Specific terminology.
113. illustrations images
tweets
help articles navigation
words
photos
audio
slideshows
interface copy
podcasts Facebook posts
blog posts infographics comments
cartoons video
white papers error messages
114. Let’s talk about the message
architecture of SVC.
What do we think the key messages
are? Let’s spend some time on that.
115. What content on the site–just content,
not layout–can we keep, as is?
What needs to be edited?
What’s missing and needs to be created?
And what needs to be killed?
116. Editorial Style Guide
What’s our tone?
Which dictionary do we consult?
Do we use the serial comma?
117. Editorial process
Who’s creating our content?
How do we decide it’s good enough?
How do we evaluate its effectiveness?
118. Content Template
(a.k.a. Page Table)
What needs to go on each kind of
page? Includes both visible and invisible
content. Accompanies site map and
wireframes. Communication bridge
between subject matter experts and
writers.
122. Editorial Calendar
How do we decide when to publish?
(Tweet twice a day? Update home page
when new products launch? Respond
to holidays? Respond to news events?
How quickly? Etc.)
123. There are more tools.
content matrices
content modeling
accessibility guidelines
SEO analysis
taxonomy
personas
competitive analysis
wireframes
128. “If IA is the spatial side of information,
I see content strategy as the temporal side
of the same coin.”
Louis Rosenfeld
@louisrosenfeld
129. “When I look at where most websites fail, it’s in
managing their content over time.”
Karen McGrane
@karenmcgrane
130. Consultants and agencies:
People want to hear from you!
Yay, buy-in! But you don’t get to be
there for the long haul.
131. In-house:
Buy in can be a major challenge!
But you know the brand and business
goals, and you are there for the long
haul.
132. Content strategy is not a quick fix.
It’s a long process. One reason
content is valuable is because it’s
messy, and difficult, and requires a lot
of resources.
133. To keep your content working:
Track when content will need to be
archived or updated.
Use the editorial calendar.
Use a rolling audit.
Budget time to get that done.
135. Whatever your approach and your
background, learn about the other
areas of content strategy.
136.
137. “It’s about seeing structures through the lens of
meaning and storytelling, and building relationships
across disciplines so that our databases reflect this
richness and complexity.”
Sara Wachter-Boettcher
@sara_ann_marie
138. “You’ve set up a content management interface and
workflow, that is designed to make it as easy as
possible for the content creator to manage and
maintain all of that content in one place.”
Karen McGrane
@karenmcgrane
139. I’m tired of yammering.
I know you’ve got questions. Shoot!
140. Resources:
I’ll post a bibliography and links and stuff on my blog:
http://scarequot.es
Come to a meetup with Content Strategy Seattle!
http://www.meetup.com/Content-Strategy-Seattle/
Join the Google Group, or LinkedIn discussion groups.
Follow smart people on Twitter.
Content strategists are a friendly, helpful group. (I think
it’s a job requirement.)
141. THANK YOU
Remember to fill out your evaluation.
Don’t forget to write.
james@scarequot.es
http://scarequot.es
Twitter: @scarequotes
Notes de l'éditeur
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I’m going to start with a story. Who knows Fancy Nancy?\n\nMy daughter read Fancy Nancy and the Dazzling Book Report a few months ago, and of course, I read it, too. And realized that it’s a perfect illustration of one of the fundamentals of content strategy.\n\nIf you don’t know her, Fancy Nancy is a young girl who likes things to be fancy. She likes to use fancy words and dress in fancy clothes and stave off a non-fancy existence. \n\nOne day she’s assigned a book report on a biography of Sacajawea. She reads the book, and gets really excited about putting the report together. She gets out lots of art supplies, and puts together a beautiful and elaborate cover for the report. She wants to make it look as amazing as possible.\n\nAnd of course she runs out of time. She figured she knew what she wants to say, so it won’t take long to write, and Sacajawea deserves an awesome cover.\n\n\nOf course she spends so much time designing the cover that she ends up writing two sentences that don’t say much about the book.\n\nCan you relate? Yeah.\n\nContent strategy at its core is an I Can Read-level lesson: Leave yourself time to produce good content.\n\nNancy learns her lesson, and her teacher is forgiving, and everything works out. It’s touching. Let’s see if we can learn some lessons that we can apply to the web and other digital experiences. \n
Take notes. Discuss. Pull up examples and let’s tease out how they might do their content.\n
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They want to find stuff out! They want to be entertained! They want your content so bad they’d just as soon not visit your site to get it (RSS feeds, Instapaper, etc.)\n\nNote: This isn’t a content. All the other elements of your site are important, too.\n
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Should we go up to the computer lab? Or do people have computers here?\n
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DON’T fixate on design issues. Think about content. Everything from the class descriptions and marketing messages to word choice.\n
Side note: how many pages do you think the site has? Over 2000 HTML docs! (Not all pages, but that’s a lot of stuff.)\n
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Agencies!\n
In-house at Codecademy. Note: part of the design team. Strong writing component.\n
In-house, at companies like United Airlines. \nNote the UX specialization.\n
Facebook! (Timeline story.)\n
Lucasfilm! STAR WARS! \nThe Sr. Interactive Copywriter/Content Strategist is responsible for developing content that reflects and serves Lucasfilm’s larger strategic goals and needs. This role will work closely with the Content & Programming Lead to develop and maintain both the driving content strategy and editorial calendars for StarWars.com and other Lucasfilm online properties; will help lead the development and execution of new content-based projects; will help manage internal and external contributors; and will use audience insights and performance reports to ensure that content is highly effective. This individual must be an exceptional writer, strategist and collaborator, familiar with evolving best practices and passionate about developing effective content that balances business objectives with audience expectations.\n
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Let me tell you a secret: One of the first things I loved about content strategy was the chance to get away from marketing. \n\nMarketers were following right behind, though. And in retrospect I was naive. \n
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Here’s a debate you’ll hear about a lot. What’s the difference between content strategy and content marketing? Is there a difference? (I bet there’s ten conversations on Quora about this RIGHT NOW, and exponentially more on Twitter.)\n
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One way to break it down.\n
We’re not going to dive deep into this today, but it’s worth keeping in the back of your mind.\n
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In-house writers? Users? Vendors? Clients? \n
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Don’t overlook these three pieces: \nThe Business\nThe user\nThe context\n\nPoint of discussion: NBC and the Olympics. People complained about the time delay for the summer games—but NBC got record-breaking ratings for their coverage. Was this good content strategy? \n
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This is the formal version of what we started out doing.\n
We’re not doing this in here. But this is something you could do. \nYes, this means that an actual content inventory of the SVC website would have over 2000 lines.\n
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Talk about CAT and Integrity. There’s no one tool that does everything, or does it the way you want, but there are options, and more coming all the time. Check the Google Group or LinkedIn discussions.\n\nhttp://107.22.198.75/cat/#job/e41c6dc528dd89803bd00f31f7e958b5\n
WHAT is this content?\nWHO is responsible for it?\n
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Think back to Fancy Nancy: Her book report cover is worthless without an actual book report.\n
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Jeffrey Zeldman\n
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Content strategists are usually good communicators, but that doesn’t mean they’re always copywriters or other content producers.\n
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Don’t count on redesigns, in my experience. Start figuring out how to practice content strategy with the site you have now. Evolution, not revolution.\n
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Yes, this is one thing you can put on a spreadsheet. \nExamples: “This says ‘new.’ When should it stop saying that?”\n“This copy talks about being cutting-edge technology. We’ll need to revisit when the next line comes out. Pull it or edit it.”\n
Let’s dig in to the Buzzfeed strategy: http://cdixon.org/2012/07/24/buzzfeeds-strategy/\n
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Which CMS? Depends. There’s no one right answer, or even two right answers. You’ve got to know what your content creators need, what your business needs from the content, and promote a system that makes it easy. Ugly systems produce substandard content.\n